Flooding of state schools by ex indie students fails to materialise

Probably because you're posting that it won't have an impact.

I think there will be some impact, I already said I feel for dc with SEN so I'm not sure who you have inferred that to mean I am pro?

I just don't think the impact will be very big as some posters have claimed eg I don't think many will be giving up their jobs, buying all the houses in catchment, spending 16k on tutors &/or taking the majority of the grammar places. I also think it's hard to separate other issues eg lower birth rates, increased COL, fee increases pre VAT etc when looking at numbers.

I also don't think the majority of the electorate care about this policy but you can disagree.

Probably because you're posting that it won't have an impact.

Labour's approach clearly is, if you look at other threads you'll see those scared about welfare cuts.

It's all linked. Wiping out headroom hits the poorest, as we're seeing now.

That includes this poor VAT policy.

given you are pro this policy when do you expect to see the positive results?

Why do you think I am pro this policy? It may end up affecting me 😆

I just don't think it's a huge issue for the electorate & that there has been a lot of hysteria.

The article says that there'll be a new junior section at the Hampstead site, which must surely mean new places.

It also says that there'll be a lot of investment in shiny new stuff [doubtless shared in full with local communities etc etc].

I'm fairly sure that these are both the sorts of things that we were told couldn't possibly happen following the imposition of VAT.

I am not a fan of Gove, but within the state system, academy trusts and free schools have managed to increase achievement at scale over the past several years - particularly in areas with poor education outcomes.

The decisions by Bridget Phillipson to get rid of the Academy Conversion Grant and the Trust Capacity Fund (grants which help the establishment of Academies) and to pause the last wave of free schools seems to have received relatively little attention. Another example of this government working to undermine parental choice and higher levels of academic achievement?

@strappyshoe given you are pro this policy when do you expect to see the positive results?

Rn Labour are cutting welfare and civil service. They're doing this because their policies have wiped out all funding headroom.

Now you can easily see the concern about welfare on this site with scared personal stories.

Why is that good exactly?

Probably the same thing that happens each year. There are always school black spots & siblings/feeders where relevant can make a difference. There are always people who get offered a school that wasn't on their list.

I wonder what could have happened here?.. 🙄

www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5293299-secondary-school-admission

Don't be silly.

Alleyns are not opening new schools. They are renting their name to existing schools, in this case owned by a private equity company whose investment has not been as lucrative as hoped. No additional private school places are being created in this transaction.

Talking about buying privilege and preferential treatment...

Should parents not donate to state schools?

Talking about buying privilege and preferential treatment... 🙄

Well said. My DC are currently in grammar, and some of the vitriol I’ve received on other threads is shocking. Full disclosure: I vote LibDem, but you’d think from what other posters have said to me, I’m akin to Jacob Rees Mogg, and I hold identical political beliefs to his.

Someone on one of these threads (I can't remember which one, there are so many!) said the rapid increase in the number of private schools is directly related to Labour doing away (mostly) with the Grammar School system.

Time and time again, parents are showing that they really want greater choice in education for their children: more academic streams, selectivity in some way - they really wouldn't need to turn to fee paying if the state system accommodated these desires (which really, are most of us). Parents constantly do this via buying houses in certain school catchments, and parents who don't realise how to research this choose private as an alternative. The religious/faith schools have got their way and can select away with no penalty. The few remaining Grammars are a complete bun fight to get into, and the escalating tutoring expectations only exist because there aren't enough of them to satisfy parent demand. However: the comp brigade won't be satisfied until no selectivity exists anywhere - and they are the ones now in power. This is so completely at odds with the way people actually behave and what they want.

The governing principle now is to lift up the lowest common denominator, the poorest, the lowest achieving towards better outcomes (which is a lovely idea in theory, and as a Labour voter, this is definitely the outcome I want to vote for). However I'm coming to the slow realisation that every time Labour do come in, this happens AT THE EXPENSE of the more able/better off, at the expense of choice, and at the expense of finding best-fit options for parents and children alike. This is just bad for everyone, including the ones at the bottom of the pile. The most able and wealthy are the ones eventually paying all the taxes anyway: they are necessary to the system in order to support the "uplift" outcomes desired by all. It takes two hands to clap doesn't it? If you take away their choices, they will simply compensate by yet another "market force" as someone upthread put it. The ones at the bottom will continue to stay there.

Disagree.

The information available suggests that the vast majority of parents sending their children to independent schools also apply for state school places so that they have a backup. The fact there has been little impact on Y7 applications therefore tells us nothing. Any exodus from independent schools will manifest itself in an increase in in-year applications and a higher proportion of those offered Y7 places actually starting at state schools in September.

Note that I am not saying there is, or will be, a mass exodus. I suspect that those opposing VAT have overstated the likely movement and the government has underestimated it, but I don't know. However, if there is an exodus going on, Y7 applications is not the place to look for it.

We can definitely say a minimum, absolutely for definite, that the very worst of the scaremongering stories that were being drivelled out by the predictable vested interests, of many tens of thousands of defections happening straight off the bat, were always ludicrous and have been shown up as such.

But the real medium to long term impact will always be essentially unknowable.

We could even see an overall increase in private school numbers, pupils and providers (including through expansions like the one linked below), and still see arguments, maybe even plausible arguments, that 'market forces', unburdened by the change in VAT, would have seen a far bigger increase, and hence less greater alleviation of pressure on the public purse, etc etc etc.

https://www.standard.co.uk/business/elite-dulwich-school-alleyns-to-open-offshoots-north-of-the-rive-for-first-time-in-400-year-history-b1213399.html

Was not contradicting you, just adding.

In what way does the French government disincentivise parents from sending their dcs to private school? It’s cheap as chips in France to send a child to private school in France in comparison to the UK because the government has a policy that every child should have access to education and gives the state funded element to the private school. The parents then only pay the extra top up. Excluding the VAT element, which as previously stated is not legal in the EU, that would pretty much halve fees for the average private school were the policy in place over here.

Just because you think “charity” means a certain thing, doesn’t mean that’s actually what it means. The legal definition of a charity includes all sorts of objectives, not just “benefiting those in need of help”. These include education, research, medicine, the military, ecology, emergency services, conservation, animal welfare, and so on.

A donkey sanctuary in Wales might only have five old donkeys, but it still has a charitable objective and meets public benefit requirements, even if it helps no humans in need and no-one in England ever gets to visit.

Schools that are charities are not businesses. They have no shareholders, cannot make a profit and must be structured legally as charities under Charity Commission guidelines. Everyone on these threads who keeps on saying “but they’re businesses” just makes it obvious that they have zero idea what a charity is OR what a business is.

It’s very easy to declaim what you think a charity is, but five minutes spent on the website of the Charity Commission actually looking it up would be more accurate and useful.

^^This. Way too early to see any effects. Many schools are trying to mitigate the VAT for the moment by slightly reducing fees, plus parents are averse to moving in-year.

As it’s been introduced mid-year, you won’t see the effects until the start of the next academic year (not just in students moving private-state but also the numbers of students taking up new places).

As others have said, most applying for private always did a backup state offer, so we won't know til we see what percentage of offers are taken up.

Oh ffs why are people still so ignorant.

Private schools that have charitable status still have charitable status.

Delivery of education on a not-for-profit basis meets the definition of a charitable objective just as much as providing services in sports or healthcare or dozens of other things that can generally make the world a better place.

Lots of charities charge money for their services. If the money they have coming in is equal to what they are spending on achieving their objectives they are fine to do so.

If any charity is selling goods or services that are liable for VAT then they have to collect that VAT on behalf of HMRC, same as any profit-making non-charity. This doesn't affect and is not affected by charitable status.

Education used to be exempt from VAT. It is illegal to charge VAT on Education under EU law but post-brexit we can ignore that and it is now a VATable service. This is the same for schools that are charities (not-profits) and that are profit-making.

Every single person who continues to comment on these threads while clearly being totally ignorant of these facts really makes themselves look rather thick. This information hasn't been hidden in secret, it is readily available for anyone who cares to check that they understand what they are talking about before sharing their opinions.

A lot of private schools never had charitable status. Like most countries, we didn’t tax education so there wasn’t VAT on school fees. If we were still in the EU, Labour would not have been able to have this policy.

Still a lot lower than France.